A Frozen Corpse
by laurenlizabeth
Summary: Kristoff is just looking for some money but he ends up getting more than he can handle when he manages to bring a corpse back to life AND promise it passage up the North Mountain. This is inspired by the Corpse Bride and does NOT follow the plot line. Rated T for mild gore and small violence. (I probably could have gone K but rather be safe)
1. Chapter 1

A tall man forced his way through the outlying forests of the town after a very unsuccessful day at the market. A sack of wooden figures he had whittled hung heavy over his shoulder, he had learned that no one needed décor when their basic needs weren't being met. Unfortunately the only offer of payment involved taking a family further into the mountain.

"What do they expect me to do, huh? I'm not some stupid tour guide, I'm an ice harvester." He grunted and pushed his way further into the pines. He needed money, and no one needed ice in the middle of the coldest winter Arendelle had ever faced, so maybe it was time to start looking for a second occupation. But a tour guide? "I don't do people."

The man plopped himself onto the ground and leaned against a boulder. Could he even pretend to like someone for the money? He looked at his boot, running so thin he could feel the cold ghosting his toes. _I don't have a choice_, he thought. But if he were going to take that family he'd do it on his terms, and without losing his dignity. The mountain man closed his eyes, "I'll do it… No, that's too desperate. If you need it, I can take you up the mountain… I guess. That'll have to-" Underneath him, the ground began to shake.

He turned around quickly and watched as the boulder emanated an eerie green glow. "What is going on!?" A loud crack and the rock split in two and fell to the ground. From where the stone had previously been the surrounding snow flurried into a whirlwind so strong the man covered his eyes and attempted to peak through his gloved hand. From the ground rose a figure that crept up to him and hovered over.

An emaciated woman with sage green skin and a smile that spread from one ear to, well, where the other ear _should_ have been leaned forward and grabbed his shoulder. From her right elbow to wrist she had no skin or muscle, only bone, and the man could see the foliage behind her through her rib cage. She wore a once beautiful green dress that clung to her to her waist then mushroomed out in a gorgeous rosemaling pattern. However, the dress was tattered in spots and covered in dirt. But all the man could look at was her neck: her head swayed precariously on a stack of vertebrae. His mouth fell in a silent scream and he scurried backward dragging his rear through the snow mumbling incoherently.

She lurched forward and her head toppled off and rolled into his lap. She blinked then said, "Oh thank goodness you're going to take me up the mountain!" And with that statement the man lost consciousness.

The man woke in the snow and rubbed his eyes. "God, I need to eat more so I stop having such crazy dreams." He went to stand when he heard the sound of frenzied sobbing. Following the sound with his eyes he saw a twist of red hair wrapped in ribbons from a woman sitting against a rock.

"I killed him, oh no oh no. That's very not good, I mean how am I going to meet Hans up the mountain without some help? I've ruined everything, all over again. I can already hear her now, Good job Anna. If only you'd listen, Anna. Just try to let it go, Anna." The mountain man walked over and leaned against the rock on the other side.

"I need to ask you a really strange question, okay?" He wasn't sure what he was doing, but he had to know what this dream came from.

"You're alive!" He heard her rustle as she stood, then a thud.

"Yes, _I_ am. Are you?" He glanced around the boulder and shuddered to see the lonesome head on the ground and the partially decaying body chasing after it. "I'll take that as a no."

"Oops, we don't really like to stay together…" She whistled and the skeletal arm reached forward and located the sound. Once her neck was (relatively) attached to the head she sat in front of the man.

"So you'll take me up the mountain?"

"What? Why would I do that?" Even though this girl was a corpse, the hurt expression still managed to get to him. "I, I don't do people, okay?"

"But, you said you would!" The red head retorted with ferocity.

"Not you, there's a family, they were going to pay me. I can't just take a day trip up the mountain and not get anything from it."

"Think about it this way. My sister is Queen of the Dead. Walking away from this will be payment enough." She looked unsure about this, but really, a corpse was threatening him, could he take any chances?

"Fine, we leave when the sun rises." He grunted. The man attempted to sleep, however the girl kept pushing questions.

"What's your name?" She prodded his shoulder.

"Kristoff."

"I'm Anna, it's spelled like _Aaa_nna, but pronounced _On_na. I always had issues getting people to say it correctly before. Elsa says it's an old family name. Oh! Elsa is my sister I was telling you about. Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

"Must have been lonely growing up. I mean, I was also pretty lonely because Elsa was bedridden and then she died when I was fifteen and then I died and now we're reunited. I'm not really sure how she got all this power in the Land of the Dead. Apparently that's why she was so sick, because she was never meant for the Land of the Living. She has these really cool powers down there though, like really cool. Hah," she laughed, "Oh you don't get the joke. Well she has ice powers, so get it, cool!" When Kristoff didn't respond, Anna continued. "You're very grumpy. Do you have friends up here? Or a pet? Or do you always talk to yourself like you were when I found you?"

"I have friends!" Kristoff buried his face in his hands. "I used to have a reindeer but he was more of a companion than a pet." Why, why was he talking to her? She was threatening him with death, (albeit a very tentative threat) and he was just sharing with her.

"Right right, sure you do." Kristoff could practically feel her eyes rolling. "What happened to the reindeer? Oh! Was he soft? I bet he was. Though actually, I've never pet a reindeer before, are they soft? Hey, where are you going?" The mountain man was walking away into the trees.

"We leave now." Anna ran after him, holding her head with both hands to keep it from finding the ground again.

"But the sun?"

"Clearly I'm not getting any sleep and the faster this nightmare is over the faster I can get on with my life." Kristoff spoke more to himself than to the jogging body beside him. "It's gonna be a long and difficult trip, but if we don't stop at all we'll make it before the sun sets."

"And if we ride?" Anna's foot stuck in the snow and she fell face forward. Kristoff bent down and grabbed her by the waist to pluck her up and put her on her feet. He shuddered as his hand slid between two ribs.

"Oh, gross." He pulled but, oh no, it was stuck. His hand was stuck in an animated dead body. "This is definitely the worst day of my entire life…" Kristoff kept tugging and Anna rattled around his wrist giggling.

"It tickles!" She explained at his exasperation. "Just calm down and it'll be easier. Ready, there you go!" Kristoff shook his free hand like he had touched a fresh pile of droppings. "But really, can we ride?"

"Yeah but we have no ride, Anna. You can't just pull it out of thin air." Kristoff was still staring down at his hand in absolute disgust.

"But I can pull it out of the lake! There's one over here right?" Anna walked to the left then the right, chewing on her lip in indecisiveness.

"Come on, this way." He led the way with a brisk walk, watching to make sure she didn't fall and he could avoid the terrifying moment again. They continued on in silence until Kristoff turned around to look at her hopping like a rabbit in his large foot steps. He couldn't help but laugh, if she weren't so goulish, it'd be pretty damn cute.

"Do you mind if I ask why you want to get to the top of the North Mountain?"

"Not at all, you see there's this guy, and we're going to run away together! He told me to meet him at the top of the North Mountain and then we're getting married-"

"What makes you think he'll still want to marry you? No offense, of course."

"Right no offense." Anna huffed. "We love each other. And I've only been gone a month…or so. Hans can't have moved on right?"

"So when you find this Hans, assuming he's just been living on top of a mountain for a few months, what's your plan? Does he die or do you live?"

"I, ugh, hadn't thought about that. But true love always wins out! So it'll work out, I mean we chose to get married by the end of the week, he wouldn't turn me down for some superficial reason, right?"

"The end of the week? Hold up, when did you meet?"

"That week? Why?"

"You can't marry someone you just met, Anna that's ridiculous."

"You can when it's true love." Anna crossed her arms but the squabble was ended by their destination.

In the center of a clearing a small frozen lake glistened in the night light. Anna knelt down and brushed the snow of an area and began to write with her fingernail.

"What are you doing?" Kristoff stood a few steps behind her.

"I'm sending a message to my sister." Anna waited and when there was no response scratched the message harder.

Kristoff sat a few feet from her and looked into the ice. The reflection of a blueskinned woman caught his eye and he leaned forward so his palms braced the frozen water. Two blue hands reached up and suddenly Kristoff was submerged through the ice.


	2. Chapter 2

Fear began to swallow him and he attempted to swim, but then he realized that he wasn't in fact in water, but rather standing on a floor of ice. Turning his head around, he found out he was in a cavern of ice and above him was the sky he had previously been looking at from the lake.

"Hi." A tender voice cautioned from behind him. White hair, blue skin, and a face very similar to Anna's greeted his gaze. "I'm Elsa. And I think you need to leave my sister alone."

"Hey now, your sister is the one who won't leave me alone. She threatened to kill me!" Kristoff raised a hand in defense. Elsa took a step toward him, her shimmering gown of ice brushing the floor.

"I know that. I can see her." Elsa gestured to one of the walls where Anna's determined face stared intently, but blankly, down. "But boys tend to be my sister's downfall."

"So I heard. What's the deal with this Hans character? Is Anna that desperate-"

"No Anna's not desperate… she's sad and lonely. She was what was left of the family. I had died three years previous to the incident and our parents died in a storm several months before Hans showed up. You can't blame her, Anna was only looking for love when her life was devoid of it."

"You can't honestly think he'll still want to marry her like this though, right?" Kristoff looked at her image displayed on the icy wall. Who could love a corpse?

"Well about that… He didn't marry her alive either. She made it to the mountain top and met him there. However, Hans had thought that they would live in the village with all our wealth, but Anna had discarded it with the idea of running away. He didn't take too kindly to that and got angry. Hans severed her head with his sword in the moment and, in fear, hid the body in the woods." Kristoff couldn't imagine. Anna, even now, didn't deserve a fate such as that. She was just a girl looking for love.

"But when she joined the Land of the Dead, I erased her memory of the incident. I thought she would move on believing she froze to death like I had, but she couldn't escape from the need to see him. To resolve it!"

"Why didn't you tell her?" The frozen Queen wrung her braid and looked up with worried eyes.

"She would never forgive me. I don't know if she'd believe me either. She would think I took her out of jealousy, but I took her memory_, only her memory_, out of love." Silence fell. "You can't take her up the mountain Kristoff. She'll have to face her fate once she gets there. What happens then? She'll fall to pieces."

"Look, I told her I'd take her. Once she gets there I'll leave her alone. I'm sorry, but I owe you nothing. Maybe you should just tell her what happened now. It'll probably save both of you grief."

"This was a mistake. It's time for you to leave." Elsa paced back and forth on the ice, her heels clicking. "And don't tell my sister." Her hands flew up and Kristoff began to feel himself being sucked back through the ice ceiling, "I'll be watching!" She shouted as an afterthought.

Kristoff was spat from the lake and rolled in the snow. Something had definitely messed with these girls.

"Anna?" He stood and began to search for her.

"I'm coming! Oops!" Her voice came from back in the trees. No doubt her head was rolling on the ground at this point so Kristoff went to assist the decapitated girl.

He picked her head up softly with both hands and looked into large eyes as her body groped about in the snow. Kristoff whistled. The body stepped toward him and he passed the head to it.

"You ought to fix that somehow." He said, rubbing the back of his neck thinking about the sword separating once lovely face from once lovely body.

"Eh, I'll get by. But I have a present for you!" Head screwed on, Anna turned and pat her knees. From the trees, a massive skeleton came thundering in. Antlers scraping the low hanging branches, the remains of a reindeer came straight up to Kristoff. A wide tongue slobbed out and greeted his face. Fear struck Kristoff first but then familiarity followed.

"Sven?" Kristoff exclaimed. The reindeer pranced at the recognition and nudged his living friend. "Oh, buddy! Man have I missed talking to you," Suddenly, Kristoff remembered that Anna was standing there and he coughed, "I mean seeing you."

Anna's eyes rolled in their sockets as she said "But we can ride up the mountain now?" She gestured to a black sled.

"I'm not even going to ask how you pulled this off." Kristoff walked over to the sled and swiped his hat from his head, whistling. "That's a nice finish on the wood." Sven came to the sled taking his place in front. Kristoff smiled, just like old times… except a little more dead. He harnessed the skeleton to the sled and then sat on the bench, the leather reins in his mittens. Everything felt so right once again.

Anna sat next to him, and Kristoff smiled from ear to ear. He couldn't even begin to articulate the gratefulness he felt for being reunited once more with his friend. He hoped that Anna could tell it from this smile, this look in his eyes, this energy he tried to share. Reins in hand, he snapped them and the reindeer began to run.

"Hey, hey! Anna, hold onto your head!" Kristoff loosed one hand to gently grasp her teetering head. Her hand ghosted over his and she held on tight. Their eyes locked and Kristoff swallowed hard and shifted his gaze abruptly.

"So was it Elsa who gave us this?" Kristoff questioned over the wind.

"Yeah, she just sent it through her portal. Since Elsa died in the lake and she has all these strange powers, she has a lot better connection between the Lands of the Living and the Dead. Like me, I can only connect when someone addresses me in my specific grave."

"Like me, well kind of like me." Kristoff offered.

"Hmm," Anna grew silent. The wind was the only sound to reach their ears for ten minutes. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to inconvenience you with me, it's just…" Anna chewed on her lip. Kristoff turned to look at her as though to will her to continue. "Not many people come to my grave. No one talks to me normally, you can't blame me for taking an opportunity."

"No, no I can't." Kristoff paused, trying to decide if the words sitting on his tongue were appropriate or not. "I'm glad this all happened. At the worst, I at least have an interesting story." He barked a short laugh. Anna smiled.

Kristoff regarded her vertebrae and imagined the betrayal a sad naïve girl had suffered from the man she thought she loved. Kristoff grimaced. He knew, he knew someone had to tell her and that he would be the one to do it. Not Hans, not Elsa, him. He could protect the elder sister from blame and protect Anna from the pain.

But he had to wonder: Could a heart that didn't beat still feel pain?

"Anna, Hans won't be there." Kristoff couldn't look at her.

"I don't care what you think, Kristoff, he'll be there."

"Anna, he's using you. He wants your inheritance."

"I don't have an inheritance now, there won't be anything for him to use."

"Exactly, Anna." Kristoff turned to look at her. She was staring open mouthed trying to form some retort. "Anna, before you died, what did you do?"

"What are you trying to get at?" He could hear the hurt in her voice.

"How did you die?"

"I froze. I was outside and underdressed."

"Are you sure?"

"Kristoff-"

"How did you die?"

"I _froze_!" Anna stressed the word.

"How did you die?" Kristoff was relentless.

"I told you. I froze to death!"

The man was still for a moment, wondering if he was doing the right thing. He looked over at her and he could have sworn she was crying.

"What are you trying to do?" Her voice was choked.

Kristoff stared hard, knowing that he couldn't let her carry on not knowing, always harboring love for a rotten man. Gently, he said, "Why can't you keep your head straight, Anna? Why isn't it connected? Haven't you ever wondered? Why would you have lost your head freezing?"

"I don't know!" She shouted.

"What did Hans say the night you died?"

"What do you mean?" The girl was exasperated.

"What did he do to you the night you died?"

"Stop it!"

"How did you die?" Each word came like a punch.

"He killed me!" Anna's eyes went blank and her mouth dropped. She slumped in her seat and her hands came to her neck. "He decapitated me because he never loved me he only wanted my money."

Kristoff let Sven ease to a stop then took Anna's hand in his. "Elsa took your memory. We had a conversation while you were retrieving the reindeer and the sled. She didn't want you to hurt or be vengeful. She only wanted you to be happy, Anna."

"Do I look happy? Did I ever look happy?" Anger spouted from her small voice. Anna's head tilted to look upward at the ceiling of icicles from overarching tunnels.

She slid off the bench and began to walk, dragging her feet through the deep snow. Kristoff stood and watched her. The skeletal reindeer turned to nudge its companion.

"I know buddy, but what am I supposed to do? It was the right thing." The reindeer nudged again, "_But she's so sad, Kristoff." _Kristoff sighed and watched as the girl sunk to the snow. She rest her hands to the ground and curled herself inward. With no warning, she began to shriek in agony. Wailing like no other, grief emanated from the small frame to shake the icicles overhead. Kristoff observed them warily.

"Anna, it'll be okay." He took a step toward her but the howls grew stronger. The icicles shook threateningly. "It wasn't true love. There's still a chance you'll find someone who truly loves you. Someone who would do anything for you. Anna, please, this is dangerous." She looked up at him, hurt deep in her eyes. Even though her banshee-like wails had ceased, it was too late: The great icicles cracked and sped towards the Earth. With no thought, Kristoff threw himself over the weeping girl.

Kristoff awoke to find blue eyes staring into his brown ones. A blue face smirked down at him and he groaned out loud.

"I'm sorry I told Anna that we talked, can we do this later though? I need to get back to her. She could be hurt." Kristoff pushed off Elsa.

"She is." The frozen Queen said looking at Kristoff quizzically. "She has been. For three months."

"What?" Kristoff was confused.

"My sister was gravely hurt three months ago. She died then." Elsa couldn't help but giggle.

"What is so funny?" He huffed.

"Look down." Kristoff sat up and stared at himself.

"You have got to be kidding me." The sharp end of an icicle stuck through his rib cage and Kristoff put a hand to his head.

"You sacrificed yourself for a dead body." Elsa was laughing louder now, no longer holding it in with grace.

"Stop laughing, Elsa, he's going through a big change." Anna's voice caught Kristoff''s attention.

"True love would do anything?" Anna stood up and walked toward him, kneeling in front of the impaled, freshly departed man.

Kristoff had wondered if a heart that could no longer beat could feel pain, well when Anna grabbed his hand, Kristoff learned that a heart that could no longer beat could sure as hell feel love.


End file.
